Life In LC

Eugene Hearing & Speech Center Closes

EUGENE, Ore. — An unexpected closure is catching the Eugene community off guard. The Eugene Hearing and Speech Center shut its doors Friday and laid off more than a dozen employees.

Executive Director John Baumann says the center’s had some financial trouble for quite a while, but just in the last few weeks found out the financial issues were worse than they thought.

So, effective Friday the center laid off more than a dozen of its 22 employees and shut its doors. It kept four employees to come up with a new business model in hopes the center will be able to make some changes and reopen.

Each year the center helps about 6,000 people with a wide variety of hearing and speech issues, many who can’t afford these types of services.

“Our main function is to be there for low income people and one of the reasons that we are in financial trouble is that we have not been getting adequate donor support to maintain that,” said Baumann.

He says anyone who needs to get their records from the center can call and get them transferred to a new doctor or pick them up.

There’s no set time for the center to reopen. The executive director says he’s hoping they can work with Pacific University audiology department to become a teaching facility for recent audiology graduates.